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Law & Humanities Blog

Posted: 16 Nov 2012 09:27 AM PST

Xing Li, Stanford Univesrity Department of Economics, Megan MacGarvie, Boston University Department of Finance & Economics and National Bureau of Economic Research, and Petra Moser, Stanford University Department of Economics & National Bureau of Economic Research have published Dead Poets' Property - The Copyright Act of 1814 and the Price of Books in the Romantic Period. Here is the abstract.

Although copyright is a subject of intense debate, there is little empirical evidence on the effects of stronger rights on the price of intellectual assets. This paper exploits a differential increase in the length of copyright in favor of books by dead authors under the 1814 U.K. Copyright Act to investigate the causal effects of longer copyright terms on price. Difference-in-differences analyses, which compare the price of new editions of books by dead and living authors before and after 1814, indicate an 8 percent increase in price for each additional year of copyright, and an elasticity of price with respect to longer copyright of 0.9. Results are robust to controlling for book age, author, and time fixed effects, as well as genre fixed effects and controls for literary quality. They are also robust to excluding books by famous authors who died after 1814, and to excluding books by recently deceased authors. Placebo regressions reveal no significant effects for books by dead authors that did not benefit from longer copyrights. Complementary analyses confirm that books become cheaper as they approach the end of copyright.

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.

Religion and the Duality of Law and Literature

Posted: 16 Nov 2012 08:57 AM PST

Nahel N. Asfour, University of Vienna Faculty of Law, has published Law and Literature: Jewish and Christian Models at 6 Pólemos: Journal of Law, Literature and Culture 263 (2012).

Here is the abstract.

Law and literature is the study of the utilities of the reciprocal ties between the two domains. Classic approaches divide the field into two main patterns of study. One is the literary approach to law, i.e. the study of law as literature, which primarily implements literary theory and criticism in legal texts. The second is law in literature, which investigates literary expressions of law and the various ways law is depicted in literature.
Of late, a new paradigm labeled "literature alongside law" has been suggested. This paradigm neither puts the emphasis on one field nor utilizes one for the service of the other. Rather, it investigates both fields, viewed one beside the other, as interwoven cultural expressions of a complex fabric of the human condition. This duality exposes the various ties infrequently noted within the confines of the former classic approaches. This paradigm is closely tied and evoked by an old yet interesting source of scholarly inspiration: the Jewish rabbinic combination of Halacha and Aggadah. They can be appreciated as the religious parallel model of their paradigm and of contemporary law and literature scholarship as a whole.
Halacha is the body of religious legal norms and bending interpretations as expounded by Jewish Rabbis. Aggadah is the body of narratives, stories, myths, advice, morals and parables transmitted traditionally alongside Halacha. Rabbis, as the early scholars of law and literature, pondered the nature of this duality and the prospective worth of its inseparability. In comparison, Christianity and Canon law seem to reject this model and any equal treatment of literature alongside law in its central works. Due to various historical and theological reasons, this duality was denounced. While the Jewish model has been widely investigated, no similar attempts have been made as regards the Christian model.
This paper seeks to present these two religious models within the confines of law and literature scholarship, to compare both and, especially, to ponder possible meanings for the repulsing tension amid law and literature in the Christian model. The article concludes that law and literature is a two-sided coin, much like the two religious models. One seeks better truth in the constant dialogue of law and literature. The other preserves its truth in the polar and repulsing tension of law and literature. These two models ought to be equally valued for law and literature scholarship.

The full text is not available from SSRN.